The Auto Trader website is the UK’s largest online automotive trading service. With around 370 000 listings at any one time, consumers are likely to find the vehicle of choice. The Auto Trader website does not limit its listings to cars, but also include boats, trucks, caravans and bikes. Apart from the buying and selling features the website analysis also shows a website that is filled to the brim with advice, reviews, news and useful tools.

As an Internet marketing spot for sellers, the website boasts the traffic required to ensure that sellers can list their vehicles with confidence knowing that their vehicles will get the exposure required to ensure fast sales and sound sales transactions. The website analysis is done to find out why the Auto Trader website receives more than 10,319,057 new visitors every month. Unique visits are important when it comes to selling your vehicle online as you need to know that the audience is growing to ensure a sale.

An overview of the Auto Trader website can be obtained at the homepage. Images play an important role when a buying decision is needed and as such it is not surprising that the website has that many images. Good quality images are not all that you need when you want to buy a vehicle and the Auto Trader website does not disappoint when it comes to useful advice as well as assistance and tools. Users will find links to finance and insurance which are more than mere advertisements. It is even possible to get feedback on the value of a vehicle, what its trade in value is, and what the market price is. Loan repayment calculations can be done and loans compared online. When it thus comes to content and usability the Auto Trader website is clearly a winner.

In terms of good website design methods followed to ensure a coherent look and to promote online branding the Auto Trader website analysis also shows that no detail has been spared. The familiar Auto Trader colors of red and blue feature throughout. A cascading style sheet menu ensures familiar navigation throughout the website. There are no dead links, a home link is present and the titles display in the title bar. The last modification date can be viewed in the source code and several search facilities feature.

In terms of accessibility the Auto Trader website does not yet support access keys, but according to the website accessibility statement will in future. The pages of the Auto Trader website have heading tags for easier navigation. The accessibility statement provides assistance regarding text resizing, while the tab key can be used to navigate between links on a specific page. There are tips on browsing available and the quick search options allow for locating pages directly through keyword related searches. Advanced search options are also available. Many of the links contain more descriptions while the images also contain ALT tags except for the decorative graphics. Even when a browser does not support CSS, the user will still be able to read the content. Assistance and links to screen readers, text only browsers, and low bandwidth browsing tools are provided at the accessibility page.

In addition to the above, the copyright notice, privacy statement, and terms of conditions statements are visible at the bottom of the home page. Online branding by including the logo of the company is important for effective Internet marketing. The Auto Trader logo is clearly displayed and the theme is coherent throughout navigation. A site map is present under the name of site index which also makes the website more accessible and at the same time forms part of SEO to ensure easy indexing of the site by spiders.

The website design complies with sound SEO policies. The Auto Trader website does well in search engine listings as can be seen from the traffic it generates. One reason for it can be the presence of Meta tags with descriptions and correctly targeted keywords. Another contributing factor is the site map. The use of headings and Alt tags also play a role. In addition the website loads fast and no dead links are present. The logical flow from content and enough wording are more factors. Apart from the website design features, interactivity, viral Internet marketing and loads of incoming links contribute to the Auto Trader success at search engines. At the time of website analysis the Auto Trader website has been listed at Dmoz and Yahoo! Directory. It boasts more than 51 000 back links from AltaVista and 1160 from Google. Looking at the above it becomes clear that there is simply no better place to sell or shop for vehicles online in the UK than the Auto Trader website.